M’S Where They Like It: Kingdome

Noses bloodied and eyes blackened, the Seattle Mariners peered from behind their boxing gloves Sunday night and said to the Cleveland Indians, “Ha! Gotcha where we wantcha!”

Looks aside, headaches aside, rubber legs aside, they have a point. Though they trail the American League Championship Series 3-2, this punchout will end at the House of Hubbub either tonight or Wednesday night.

We’re talking serious homeboys here. The Mariners have lost six of their last seven road games, dating back to the final two regular-season defeats in Texas. That includes a 3-2 loss Sunday night that was eminently winnable because the Indians provided four errors and Lake Erie provided a 25-mph wind that made every fly ball mystery meat.

As the sports world knows by now, the Mariners play superbly at the Kingdome when they are down to a single fingernail upon the precipice. Seems the will of 57,000 Sam Kinison impressionists has a way.

However, at first glance, the 4-0 streak in do-or-die games seems in peril, because the Mariners will attempt to continue it without Edgar Martinez. At least, the ‘Gar who hit .356 in the regular season and .571 in the division series against the Nerw York Yankees, including two semi-immortal, season-saving blows that won the last two games against New York.

Against the Indians through five games, he’s hitting .050. They’re going to start calling him Dow Jones, which several years ago at Wall Street Stadium also dropped more than 500 points in a very short period.

But Mariners manager Lou Piniella will not accept that Martinez is merely a ghost of his formerly formidable self. In fact, Sunday night he all but declared Martinez’s 1-for-20 slump over.

“Edgar’s going to hit,” Piniella said.”Remember, he didn’t miss a game all season. He’s been in there day in and day out. He may be a little tired. It seems like we’ve been criss-crossing this country for the past two weeks.

“But you know what? He’s going to have a day off (Monday) and he’s going to finish off this series with a flourish.”

If you’ve listened much to Piniella this season, you know he throws around predictions like Marge Schott litters with $1,000 bills. Whether it is the honest truth, empty rhetoric or a motivational ploy directed at Martinez remains to be seen.

Piniella does know that when it comes to one of the game’s great students of hitting, there is not much he or anyone else can say but “Attaboy, Edgar!”

Still, the Martinez slump is startling to those who had quickly become accustomed to his almost cartoon-hero feats of batsmanship the last two months.

“I haven’t had a slump like this this season, but in my career I’ve had many,” he said Sunday night. “This is just not the right time to have one.”

Martinez said it in his usual placid, businesslike manner, which in itself is a feat worthy of mention. Most baseball players batting 50 cents would be tipping over police cars in parking lots. Martinez responded to the barrage of “What’s wrong?” questions over the Cleveland weekend with almost papal equanimity.

But something has been wrong, if nothing more than fatigue. His only hit has been an infield roller in Game Four. His lone contribution was in the second inning of Game Three, when his grounder to third base was mishandled by Jim Thome for an error that allowed a run to score.

Piniella, a master button-pusher the past two months, tried to help him Sunday, moving him up from third to second in the batting order. Martinez responded with an 0-for-5 evening, and left four runners on, bringing his series total to eight.

“I thought I got better pitches to hit than before,” he said of the move. “And I thought my last one had a chance to get to the wall.”

That was in the last at-bat for Martinez and the Mariners, when he sent a Jose Mesa fastball 400 feet into the glove of center fielder Kenny Lofton.

Martinez said he hit it as hard as his grand slam in Game Four of the Yankees series to dead center at the Kingdome. But the Kingdome can’t muster the air conditioning to match the autumn zephyrs of the Great Lakes, which seemed to beat back Martinez’s game-tying effort.

Still, the shot reminded Mariners fans, and certainly Piniella, that Martinez is no Jose Canseco. He is neither the only Mariner nor Indian to be off his feed in the series. As a team, the Mariners are barely hitting at the Mendoza Line, the more potent Indians .255.

Coming off the Yankees-Mariners slugfest, the Northwest was little prepared for a serene domination by pitching. The Mariners have scored just 12 runs in the five games, Cleveland 18.

“If you had told me at the beginning of the series that we’d score only 12 runs to this point, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Tino Martinez. “But the pitching staff has done a great job and we’re still alive. We have two games, hopefully, to break out.”

A couple of singles will make a 50-cent hitter look like a million bucks.